NEW YORK—The national average for gross revenue at ECP locations declined substantially last week, May 30-June 5, due to the Monday Memorial Day holiday falling on the first day of the period being tracked. Gross revenue’s decrease of -18 index points last week (Week 23) brought it to a level of 88 index points. Memorial Day also fell during Week 23 of last year, bringing gross revenue to a level of 83 index points in 2021 at this same point in time, according to Jobson’s most recent Practice Performance Tracker.

While Memorial Day did not fall within Week 23 of either 2020 or 2019, it was still down to 75 index points at this point in time in 2020 because that was still during the first few months of the pandemic. The year prior to that, Week 23 matched an average week for 2019.

Memorial Day on the first day of Week 23 resulted in declines across the board last week. When comparing last week with the previous week, all optical sales categories were down. The smallest decline was contact lenses at -9 index points, but the decreases in all other categories were in the double digits—frame units and lens pairs by -16 index points, exams/refractions by -17 points, and gross revenue by -18 points.

Even though Memorial Day was also during Week 23 of last year, when comparing last week’s optical sales with the same period last year, all categories were up this year—frame units and lens pairs by 1 index point, exams/refractions and contact lenses by 3 index points, and gross revenue by 5 index points.

With optical sales categories down across the board last week, all are at levels below an average week in 2019—the index baseline assigned a value of 100 for this Optical Business Tracker. The closest to that baseline is gross revenue at 88 index points, and the furthest is the exams/refractions category at 75 points.

Jobson Optical Research selected 1,500 optical locations that have been operating and reporting their sales to its partners, GPN and ABB Analytics, since 2019. The index has been rebased to an average week in 2019. Going forward, this new index base will be used as an arbitrary benchmark and assigned a value of 100.

Click here to view the complete Jobson COVID-19 Performance Tracker